our town

Around here this week there's been a little undercurrent of excitement. Thanksgiving is coming. The holidays are here. The countdown chain is hung and every morning little fingers get to tear through the paper and I do declare we're one day closer to Christmas.

On Sunday we found ourselves planted on a curb downtown in Farmer City. The crisp November air bit at our fingertips as we waited for our first parade in our new tiny town.

The whole scene felt thick with nostalgia to me as I watched small children with mitten covered fingers and scarves wrapped around their necks line the street and wait alongside their mom's and dad's. And the sweet people of the local church huddled together behind their small card table and giant thermos passing out steaming cocoa in styrofoam cups to passersby. And the sweet man with the genuine smile and giant hefty bag collecting discarded cups, wrappers and strewn about trash.

The parade started ceremoniously with police cars and men carrying weighty American flags. It would be my very first Farmer City parade and would be the thing to kick off this holiday week. And as I stood and watched and gazed about the little town square we were standing in the midst of I thought of only one thing for a moment. Winthrop. The town I'd grown up in, teeny tiny Winthrop, Maine. Every year there had been a holiday parade there and I'd watched from the front stoop of our house for many years until I was able to wield a saxophone and then I'd marched, fingers freezing, in that very parade playing that very ridiculously too large for me saxophone.

And then they came. The Blue Ridge Knights in all of their glory. And now here I was, in another teeny tiny town halfway across the country, watching this holiday parade, here, with my boys.

It felt exactly right. It occurred to me that even though it sounded crazy to admit, that this little farmhouse in this little place is exactly where we are supposed to be right now.

And so we watched. We collected candy. We waited for Santa. I waved to other characters along the way, while the boys hid and huddled behind me for safety from them.


We marvled at the ingenuity of some of the floats.

And finally he came. With arms waving and hearty "ho-ho-ho's", Santa passed by and his float lumbered further down Main Street. The parade ended and our holiday season felt as if it had officially begun.


**{All pictures from the parade I took with my phone, so they're not the best quality.}
**{Other than fires in our trash can, we have had no fires to report, however, if that vehicle that Santa is riding in is really our fire dept, then I'm afraid we're in trouble if we do need help.}